“Judging from the look of this, I’d say this is a balete—a parasitical tree that envelops and then kills their host’s foliage, leaving a hollow center instead of a real trunk. It’s a common enough species in the country, but the balete on this island looks to be a unique breed entirely. After all, how many trees can boast using the dead for its foundation?”

He’s right. At first the body looked like it had been ensnared by the branches. A closer inspection afforded by Hemslock’s camera shows that the corpse is the tree. It has no visible legs; its lower body appears to have fused with the roots surrounding it, so there is no clear distinction between where the corpse ends and the trunk begins. I can see strips of clothing still clinging to its person, tattered and nearly blackened with age.

“My God,” one of the film crew says.

Hemslock is undaunted. “Almost looks like this thing was carved out of its trunk, doesn’t it? The skin looks severely wizened, almost like bark. The corpse barely looks human at this point, if not for that face.”

“But as odd as it sounds, this is exactly what I came here hoping to find. Many of the myths surrounding the Godseye delve into a strange, hauntingly symbiotic relationship between the trees and the supposed god who lives on this island. People used to worship balete trees here—they believed them to be the sacred groves of duwende, or the so-called fairy people. But here in the Godseye, the story gets even more fucked up…

“Hey, can I say ‘fuck’ or is Steve gonna bleep it out? Let me do it one more time, so he can choose.

“But here in the Godseye, things get even stranger.”

The camera view swings closer to the corpse’s face. Withered and desiccated, it looks halfway between a mummified skeleton and an embalmed body. Its eyes are long gone, leaving empty sockets and hollow shadows. The nose and mouth remain distinct, like a thin membrane has been stretched over its chin and cheeks to preserve its features.

Its lips are stretched and pulled wide, distorting the face’s shape; its jaw is distended, like it died screaming. For the first time, we can see thin branches spiraling out from the corpse’s mouth, like he’s been impaled lengthwise through his body.

“According to the legends surrounding the Godseye and the island of Kisapmata,” Hemslock continues, “balete trees are natural coffins. The locals would bring their loved ones to this island with balete saplings and bury them together. If the deceased is deemed worthy, or so the tale goes, the balete grows around them. The roots will pull them underground to some hidden cave beneath the island where the god, this supposed Dreamer, sleeps.”

“And there the dead dream alongside the god, waiting for the day the god wakes—some say to heal the world; others, to destroy it and start anew.”

“Do it, Hemslock,” Armani whispers, as if the man can hear him. “Do it.”